davinci resolve color grading tutorial basics

When you’re working with compressed DSLR footage and that footage already has a grade naked in from the camera itself then you have very little dynamic range to work with and any correction you do to the footage will likely start to introduce artefacts, tearing or banding.

Flat footage gives you the widest dynamic range to work with in post as all of the colour information is there for you to work with. The reason we assume this is because it is much more difficult to adjust/correct footage that already has colour information baked into the image. Download the free LUT files HERE and preview them in action:Īndrew’s LUT tutorial is essential viewing for anyone using DaVinci Resolve or interested in high-end color grading.For this tutorial we are going to assume that or your client have shot in a flat colour profile, be that S-log, C-log or even RAW. The LUTs for this particular exercise are taken from Juan Melara, a successful colorist we’ve featured previously on the Premiumbeat blog. The following video tutorial by Andrew McKee of PixelWizard Post (below) demonstrates how to use a LUT in DaVinci Resolve. There’s now a ton of third party LUTs you can purchase/download and apply to your projects and custom generators for creating your own LUTs (like this free generator from Arri).

Many video pros will use a LUT to determine how their video footage will look when printed to film, while it’s still a digital file in their color grading app. Some LUTs are used for on-set viewing, while others are designed for post production and color grading.

In practical application… the LUT will let you view your footage during editing more naturally than the flat, desaturated image originally recorded. LUTs are not used to creatively grade a final result, they’re used to make up a difference between a source and a result. A recent NoFilmSchool post defines it nicely: Simply put, it’s a formula of numbers that can mathematically translate set values in your image into another set of values. But what exactly is a LUT and how/why would you want to use it in your color grading projects? Over the last few years, with the explosion of more affordable color grading applications and video shooters capturing more RAW (flat) images, the term “ LUT” is being used quite often. Discover how you can quickly modify the colors and intensity values in your video footage using LUTs in DaVinci Resolve.

Davinci resolve color grading tutorial basics